March 15, 2019

Death from dementia soars

Web MD - Dementia is now one of the leading killers in the United States, with the rate of deaths linked to the disease more than doubling over the past two decades.

"Overall, age-adjusted death rates for dementia increased from 30.5 deaths per 100,000 in 2000 to 66.7 in 2017," say a team of researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In sheer numbers, the new analysis of death certificate data shows that dementia was noted as the primary cause for nearly 262,000 deaths in 2017, with 46 percent of those deaths due to Alzheimer's disease. That's up from about 84,000 deaths attributed to dementia in 2000.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'd bet folding money that that's an artifact of awareness. Stigmatised causes of death, e.g. suicide, are often dissembled out of concern for the family's social wellbeing.